control

If you've got a hundred dollars to burn and love awesome technological toys, J&R has a deal for you. The self-described "gadget wonderland" is offering the Sphero ball for $99.99, a $30 drop from its normal price of $129.99.

For those unaware, the Sphero is a robotic sphere than can be controlled from your smartphone or tablet. The concept sounds simplistic, but all it takes is a bit of imagination to make Sphero an awesome gadget.

You're crazy for this one, ARCHOS! Today, the company most known for releasing the best cheap Android tablets before the Nexus 7 swooped in and drove a wedge between the concepts of "cheap" and "inexpensive" announced the TV Connect. This thing is designed to plug into your set and essentially turn it into a giant Android tablet. With a remote control. No, it's not Google TV. What.

The TV Connect will come with a 1.5GHz "Multi Core" processor of indeterminate origin, 1GB RAM, 8GB of storage, and Android 4.1.

Way back in February, a man by the name of Ben Randall demoed an amazing voice control app called "utter!" that he had started developing. The initial video (a whopping 22 minutes long) demonstrated some amazing capabilities - take a look for yourself:

But that was over 9 months ago, and aside from the initial release of the (very limited) alpha, we haven't heard much about the app, though Mr. Randall has kept interested parties updated via his very active XDA thread.

As our lives fill up with screens, it becomes all the more important for them to work together. Today's YouTube update brings that dream a little closer to reality. Now, if you own a Google TV set top box and an Android device, you can use the latter to play, pause, or add videos to a playlist on the former. This is already possible for PS3 owners, so the expanded capability is a welcome addition.

For years Nuance's Dragon served as a leader in the world of voice dictation and commands. More recently, though, as Google and Apple move in on the speech control world, the company has a more pressing need than ever to distinguish itself. Enter Dragon Mobile Assistant. This app aims to "expands the natural language understanding and artificial intelligence" of Dragon Go! and "[add] the most popular personal assistant features."

At this point, most of our readers are probably aware of how voice assistants work.

ARCHOS, in an announcement that ambitiously looks to "revolutionize" Android gaming, has just unveiled the GamePad – a 7-inch, dual-core gaming tablet with built in controls (including buttons, a d-pad, triggers, and analog sticks) that remind us a little bit of Sony's PSP.

The interesting bit about this tablet is that it includes "automatic game recognition and mapping tools" which ARCHOS promises will "ensure control compatibility with every advanced Android game."

Of course, one of the most important things about a mobile device meant to center around gaming is its spec sheet.

Another day, another Kickstarter project. This one actually looks like it could have potential, though. Ubi is an Android-powered speaker system that connects to your local WiFi network. The small black box plugs into a power outlet and is controlled primarily via voice. It comes equipped with colored LEDs for notifications, and an array of sensors including temperature, humidity, air pressure, and ambient light. To round out the specs, the box packs a full-size USB port and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Vito Cassisi, the developer behind a piece of software that could potentially revolutionize the way Android users switch between apps, updated Switcher today.

Working on the principle that swiping gestures are naturally more satisfying (from a UX standpoint) than press-and-wait actions (a la Android's multitasking button), Switcher's functionality is entirely based on the utilization of universal swipe gestures to switch between running apps (or all apps).

According to the developer, the concept was first imagined when studying on the train, desperately wishing for a way to switch between notes and web that was faster than using home or back buttons.

Though voice control apps have been around for quite some time, it took Apple's release of Siri to bring the functionality to the mainstream. Now, competing manufacturers are trying to push out similar services. Samsung's first to the punch with a Vlingo-based "S Voice" service, though it remains to be seen how well it works.

You guys remember Google TV, right? It's the project that every CEO and their mothers stood on a stage with to declare war on Apple's AppleTV hobby? Yeah, those guys have been pretty quiet since about that platform for a while now. Sony, however, got up the nerve to announce a new Google TV box at a special event in Palo Alto. Where "announce" means "say some words near, without actually talking about."